USA > Illinois > Mercer County > Past and present of Mercer County, Illinois, Volume I > Part 30
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Thomas C. Brown was judge of the same court at the May term, 1841; O. T. Skinner was judge at the September term, 1851, and entered a decree for Lewis W. Thompson, guardian of Marie McPherren and others, to sell real estate (Page 133, Chancery Record A). At the April term, 1853, H. M. Wead was judge.
The judge's docket for the May term, 1853, shows on the criminal docket, first case, indictment against Walter A. Bridgford for sale of liquor; indictment quashed. The next case, indictment against John Morris for larceny; Reynolds, state's attorney; Davidson for defendant. There were seven cases on the criminal docket. In the case of Beach and Eddy vs. Judah, Browning and Bushnell appeared for defendant. Isaac Williams vs. David Merryman, Manning appears for defendant.
Harris appears as attorney in another case; so do Madden, Beardsley, Stephen and W. Wagley and H. W. Thornton. There were thirty-seven common law cases on the docket.
At the May term of the Chancery Court, 1853, E. A. Paine ap- peared as attorney; also L. B. Howe. There were twenty-six cases at that term of court.
W. C. Goudy came in as state's attorney, October term, 1853. There appeared the suit of James Garner, Benjamin C. Taliaferro, John C. Pepper vs. Levi Willits, ejectment. This was for property in New Boston. At the October term, 1854, John R. Deeds was indicted for murder of his father-in-law, Doctor Ditto. W. C. Goudy was state's attorney; trial and verdict-not guilty. At the special January term, 1858, there were 66 criminal cases on docket; cases in common law, 409; and 101 cases on the chancery docket.
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At the time Mercer County was organized in 1835 there was not a resident attorney in the county. 'In 1839 Hiram W. Thornton located in Millersburg as an attorney for the practice of law. James H. Stewart was one of the early lawyers in Mercer County, being in practice there as early as 1842. John S. Thompson commenced practicing law in the county as early as 1844, when he was only about nineteen years of age. Not far from that time L. B. Howe located in Millersburg to practice law. There were attorneys, however, from Quincy, Knoxville, Monmouth, Rock Island, and other places from time to time before and after 1848. In those days quite a number of the attorneys would go around the circuit with the judge who held the court. Among those of prominence who appeared in Mercer County just before or after 1848 were O. H. Browning, Nehemiah Bushnell, Isaac N. Morrison, Archibald Williams and others from Quincy ; Julius Manning, of Knoxville ; S. C. Harding, Ivory Quinby, James G. Madden and E. A. Paine, of Monmouth; Charles M. Harris, William Rice, James M. Davidson, of Oquawka; Joseph Knox and Jerome J. Beardsley, of Rock Island.
One of the most prominent of these attorneys was Joseph Knox, who was regarded as the greatest advocate then at the bar in North- western Illinois ; he was one of the attorneys who defended the men who assassinated Colonel Davenport on the island near Rock Island, but he was not enabled in that case to save his clients from the gal- lows. He was famous for several years thereafter at Rock Island, but only appeared occasionally in Mercer County.
Jerome J. Beardsley, of Rock Island, attended the courts of Mercer County more generally than any other attorney from Rock Island, but his attendance commenced in the early '50s. He was a very able attorney, was well versed in the law, and could present his case to the court or argument to the jury very forcibly.
Good attorneys in those days very frequently, however, descended to pettifogging, and it is related of Mr. Beardsley that in defending a man in Rock Island County who was indicted for stealing logs from a raft of timber, Mr. Beardsley in his argument to the jury read from the indictment which charged the defendant with stealing cer- tain logs from a raft of timber "then and there found." Mr. Beardsley argued to the jury that from the language of the indictment the defendant did not steal the logs, but found them; and, consequently, he could not be found guilty of larceny, and the jury on that argu- ment returned the verdict of "not guilty."
O. H. Browning, of Quincy, stood at the head of the bar in Adams County and the surrounding counties, and his place in the history
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of the state is well known. He was afterwards a member of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet. The last case in which Mr. Browning was con- nected in Mercer County was the indictment for murder against a man by the name of Hollingsworth, which was on a change of venue from Henderson County to Mercer, and was tried in Aledo at the September term, A. D. 1859, in which the defendant was found guilty of murder in the second degree and sentenced to the penitentiary. It was a case that created considerable excitement and interest, as the Hollingsworth family was a very prominent one in Henderson County, the father of the criminal being a prominent Quaker, and during the trial of the case sat in court with his hat upon his head.
Mr. Browning's associate in the practice of law at Quincy, Nehemiah Bushnell, was also a very able attorney, and in the early 'sos attended the Circuit Court in Mercer County, but never appeared there after 1854.
Archibald Williams, of Quincy, was regarded as one of the ablest lawyers in ejectment suits and other suits involving titles of real estate. As an advocate, his style and manner of speaking were not eloquent, but he was logical and had great power with the court and very good success with the jurors. He, however, did not attend the courts in Mercer County after 1854.
Julius Manning, of Knoxville, Knox County, was an attorney also of very fine ability, eloquent before a jury, learned in the law, and was a close and logical reasoner, and exercised great influence with the court. His co-partner, Leander Douglass, was also an excellent lawyer, and in 1854 and thereafter Mr. Douglass appeared in the Circuit Court of Mercer County, and Manning no longer attended the Mercer County Court.
In addition to the attorneys mentioned from Monmouth, there was an attorney by the name of Hite that attended the courts of Mercer County for about four years-from 1855 to 1858. Mr. Hite was not an attorney of very much prominence and ability, but he succeeded, by a little pettifogging, in getting a man acquitted who was indicted for malicious mischief in killing a colt. The indict- ment charged the killing on a certain day and month of the year, as was usual and necessary. On the trial of the case it was shown that the defendant had shot and injured the colt, from which it died, on a day different from that stated in the indictment, but some time within eighteen months prior to the finding of the indictment. The court instructed the jury that it was not material at what time the defendant had injured the colt, except that it must be shown that he injured the colt within eighteen months prior to the finding of the
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indictment. Hite got the court to instruct the jury that in order to find the defendant guilty they must find that he inflicted the injury upon the animal "in manner and form as found in the indictment," and then argued to the jury that, as the evidence showed that the injury was inflicted on a different day from that charged in the indict- ment, therefore the defendant was not guilty, and succeeded by that argument in obtaining a verdict of not guilty. One of the jurors in the trial of that case was a bright, intelligent young man, who had been reading law for a year or two, and was quite ready to condemn the technicality of the law, as he termed it, and was an advocate of disregarding all technicalities and only to give effect to the sub- stantial evidence produced; but, strange to say, this young man was very prominent in contending before the jury in that case, and pro- cured a verdict of not guilty by reason of the evidence shown that the injuries were inflicted on a different day from that charged in tlie indictment, and he, with the other jurors, disregarded the instruction of the court that it was not necessary to prove the criminal act to have been inflicted on the day alleged in the indictment.
The county seat of Mercer County was removed from Millers- burg to Keithsburg in 1848, and Jas. H. Stewart about that time located in Oquawka, Henderson County, and after a number of years there removed to Warren County, where he practiced a number of years and died. He was elected state's attorney for the circuit in 1856, and served two or three terms. He was a very good lawyer, argued a case very strongly before a court and before a jury. In those days, that is from 1839 until 1856, there were not very large libraries, and especially not in Mercer County, to which lawyers could have access, and consequently the production of authorities and reading to the court was very limited. The lawyer would argue upon general principles, reading sometimes from a text-book and making a logical argument in support of his contention.
Among the early lawyers of Mercer County were John C. Pepper, Benj. C. Taliaferro, Lewis W. Thompson, John S. Thompson. Hiram W. Thornton also still continued to practice for a short time. Mr. Thornton had the best law library in the county from 1839 until 1855. In that year Mr. Thornton had practically retired from the law practice and had engaged in merchandise in Millers- burg, and about that time became one of the promoters for a railroad from Warsaw, Illinois, to Rockford, called the Warsaw & Rockford Railway Company. Mr. Thornton afterwards became the president of the company, and during his connection with it a railroad was built from Moline Junction, a point a few miles east of Moline, to
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Port Byron, the latter place being the head of the Rock Island Rapids. Work was done in other places on the line of the road and the right- of-way acquired largely from Warsaw in Hancock County through Henderson and Mercer and Rock Island counties to Rock Island, but no other part of the road was actually constructed by the company.
John C. Pepper was a lawyer of excellent ability; his address was very nice, his language good, and his selection of words well chosen, presenting his case always logically and forcibly. He was really an eloquent speaker, confining his arguments almost univer- sally to the points at issue, seldom descending to anything approaching pettifoggy. In his earlier practice he did not rank, perhaps, with John S. Thompson as a lawyer, but from 1855 until he retired from practice about forty years later, he was the head of the Mercer County bar and ranked with the best lawyers in Northwestern Illinois. He, however, in a few years after he commenced practicing became intemperate in his habits, which for a time greatly destroyed his power and usefulness as an attorney; but in later years he reformed and became a strict temperance man, and used all his energies and influence in the temperance cause. Among the cases in which Mr. Pepper was early involved was one of Jas. Garner, Benj. C. Talia- ferro and John C. Pepper against Levi Willits, which was an eject- ment suit against Levi Willits for the house and lot that he occupied as a residence in New Boston, being at that time the finest building in the little Village of New Boston. This suit caused quite an excite- ment, because if the plaintiffs in the case could succeed in that suit they would succeed in other suits against other occupants of a large part of New Boston. Taliaferro had entered the land upon which New Boston was located in 1852, and the suit was founded upon the patent given to him by the United States. It appeared that the land was patented or conveyed to Denison by the United States in 1839, and subsequently to Benj. C. Taliaferro in 1852, and it was contended by Taliaferro and plaintiffs that there was no authority for issuing the patent to Denison in 1839, but the case was decided against the plaintiffs, and the people of New Boston were relieved by the decision of further anxiety in regard to the title of their property. The case will be found to be reported in the 18th volume of Illinois Reports- page 455. The plaintiffs in the suit in the Supreme Court were rep- resented by William C. Goudy, Norman B. Judd and Julius Manning, three of the most prominent lawyers in Western Illinois, and the defendant was represented by H. M. Wead, who had been judge of the Mercer County Circuit Court from 1849 until 1855. Vol. 1-20
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Mr. Pepper was, during the time of his practice, employed in quite a number of murder cases, among them the defense of Doctor Stuart and his wife, who were indicted for the murder of William H. Brown in the year 1883. This case created great excitement in the Village of North Henderson, where the parties resided, William H. Brown being one of the proprietors in laying out and platting the Village of North Henderson, and he and Stuart both being physicians and brothers-in-law, their wives being sisters. Mrs. Stuart entered the house of Brown in the night; he opened the door at her call and admitted her, and while he was proceeding to light a lamp she shot him in the back with a revolver, inflicting a serious wound which caused his death a few months thereafter. Mrs. Stuart and her husband were both indicted, charged with murder; but they were tried separately, her husband being tried first and acquitted, and Mrs. Stuart then tried and also acquitted. Subsequent to that time, Stuart was shot and killed while driving on a public highway near North Henderson in the practice of his profession. There was no clue by which it could be ascertained who fired the fatal shot.
Another important case that Mr. Pepper was employed in was a suit by Richard B. Ellis, of Richland Grove Township, Mercer County, against Frank Von Ach and others, the board of health of the Village of Cable, on a charge of false imprisonment. Mr. Benj. C. Taliaferro was the attorney for the plaintiffs; Richard B. Ellis, John C. Pepper, Isaac N. Bassett and John C. Wharton were attor- neys for the defendants. The suit grew out of the imprisonment of Richard B. Ellis, a smallpox suspect, by Von Ach and others, acting as a board of health for the Village of Cable. It was tried twice, the verdict of the jury being for the defendants in each case, and was appealed to the Appellate Court by Ellis, where the decision of the Circuit Court was affirmed. It created quite an excitement in the Village of Cable and in the Township of Richland Grove, and some interest in the county, involving the question as when and how a person might be arrested and, if necessary, imprisoned who was suspected of having been exposed to a contagious disease.
Benjamin C. Taliaferro, who was mentioned in connection with the last case, was a lawyer quite prominent in Mercer County for a great many years, first in Keithsburg, and afterwards in Aledo, where he died. Mr. Taliaferro was a very energetic, industrious lawyer, arguing his cases with great energy and earnestness before court and jury, but he was not a close lawyer and was not very logical or well versed in the law in many instances, but Mr. Taliaferro had a very large practice and continued to have until his death.
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John S. Thompson, one of the early lawyers, commenced prac- tice in Mercer County while the county seat was at Millersburg, and while Mr. Thompson was a very young man he was elected clerk of the County Court in 1852, and was not very active in the practice after that time. In 1855 he was elected judge of the Circuit Court of Mercer County and the judicial circuit in which Mercer County was located, which included the counties of Henderson, Warren, Knox and Fulton.
Judge Thompson resigned in 1860 and Aaron Tyler, of Knox- ville, was appointed by the governor to fill out the unexpired term, which was less than a year; and in 1861 Charles B. Larrence, then residing on a farm in Warren County, formerly a prominent lawyer of Quincy, a copartner of Archibald Williams, was elected judge of the Circuit Court to succeed Aaron Tyler. Judge Larrence was elected justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois in 1865; John S. Thompson was then elected judge of the said circuit for the unex- pired term, but resigned again in 1866, when Arthur A. Smith, of Galesburg, Knox County, was appointed judge of the circuit for the unexpired term, which was less than a year after the resignation of Judge Thompson.
Judge Thompson engaged in the practice of law after his resig- nation in 1860 until his election again in 1865, and after his resig- nation a second time he was engaged as he had been before that time, as one of the promoters of the Western Airline Railroad Company, which, however, changed its name to the American Central Rail- way, and which was finally constructed in 1869 from Galva in Henry County, to New Boston in Mercer County, while Judge Thompson was president of the company.
Judge Thompson removed to California in 1872 and settled at Los Angeles, where he practiced law for a time, and subsequently engaged in promoting railroads, and died about 1903.
John S. Thompson was a very good lawyer and made a very good record as judge of the Circuit Court. He was a very ambitious politician, being a whig under the old regime and then a republican until 1868, when he succeeded in getting a nomination on the demo- cratic ticket for candidate to Congress in the district of which Mercer was a part, and made a very energetic, spirited contest, but was de- feated by Gen. A. C. Harding, of Monmouth. Judge Thompson, after his removal to California at Los Angeles, was also a candidate for Congress from that district on the greenback ticket, but some years later he identified himself again with the republican party.
Lewis W. Thompson, one of the early attorneys of the county, had quite an extensive practice from 1850 to 1858, mostly confined,
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however, to collections, and quite extensively before justices of the peace. In those days there was quite an amount of litigation in the courts of the justices of the peace of the county, and all of the attor- neys were more or less engaged in such suits, largely confined, how- ever, to collection cases, but frequently forcible entry and detainer suits, actions of trespass, etc. Mr. Thompson was also frequently engaged in suits in the Circuit Court of considerable importance in those days, but in those cases was most generally assisted by his brother, John S. Thompson, or some prominent foreign attorney. Mr. Lewis W. Thompson was not successful in his practice a few years later, in 1856, '57 and '58, and lost a large part of his practice, but he continued to practice law in the county until his death, which occurred April 22, 1881. Mr. Thompson was a respectable attorney, of strict integrity, but made prominent every little technical matter that he could raise, and was not very successful either in the courts or before a jury on questions of vital and great importance.
Elias Willits and Isaac N. Bassett commenced the practice of law in Keithsburg in the spring of 1855 under the firm name of Willits & Bassett. In the spring of 1856 Mr. Willits went to Chicago and entered into a partnership there with a man by the name of Johnson, but not being successful returned to Mercer County in the latter part of the year 1857. In the spring of 1857 John R. Bassett, a brother of Isaac N. Bassett, came to Aledo and commenced the practice of law with Isaac N. Bassett under the firm name of J. R. & I. N. Bassett; and on the return of Elias Willits from Chicago he entered into the said firm, which was then changed to Bassett, Willits & Bassett, and they continued to practice together until Feb- ruary, 1860, when I. N. Bassett withdrew for a time, and Willitts and John R. Bassett continued to practice under the firm name of Willits & Bassett until February, 1862, when Mr. Willits removed to Mon- mouth and entered into the practice of law there, and a few years thereafter was elected judge of Warren County Court, and continued in that office for twelve years, until his death in 1881. Mr. Willits was well educated, a graduate of the law department of the Uni- versity of Indiana; he was a man of fine physique, but he could not practice law successfully, not because he was not sufficiently ac- quainted with the law, but it seemed that when he got on his feet that his power to express himself was gone. He could sit down in the office and argue a case with great force ; he was metaphysical in a high degree. Mr. Willits made a successful and satisfactory county judge, and was well qualified to fill the office of circuit judge. He was a man of strict integrity, upright in every particular, and commanded the respect of all people.
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John R. Bassett had practiced in his native state, Kentucky, for some two or three years before he came to Illinois; he was a good lawyer, could argue a case logically and forcibly before judge or jury, but he would never undertake a case unless he believed his client's case was good. He always told his client, after learning about his case, whether he thought he could succeed or not for him, and if he did not think he could succeed for him would not under- take it. He continued to practice in Mercer County in connection with his brother, I. N. Bassett, as above stated, from February, 1862, until the spring of 1869, when he retired from practice. He was judge of the County Court for two terms, and removed to Kansas in 1881, where he died in 1913, at the age of 92 years.
Isaac N. Bassett was elected treasurer of the County of Mercer in the fall of 1855, and his practice largely increased in 1856, '57, '58 and '59; he and his brother, John R. Bassett, had the largest practice in the county. The great majority of the cases were col- lection cases, in which there was really no defense, but in those days there would be an attempt even in defense in order to get a con- tinuance of the case and get time. The practice was quite different then from what it is now. In those days if a suit was commenced in which the plaintiff was bound to give security for costs without filing a cost bond, on motion of the defendant the cause would be dismissed-the plaintiff could not file a bond and proceed with the suit, but it would be put out of court and he would have to com- mence a new suit, or on account of any defects, he would have to amend his declaration, the case would be continued. For these rea- sons and the desire to get time there was a great delay of technicality in endeavor to put the plaintiff out of suit or get the cause continued.
During 1857, 1858 and 1859 the dockets were very large; at a special term held in January, 1858, there were on the docket 68 criminal cases, 409 cases in common law and for cases on the chancery docket; and that was about the average of the docket commencing with 1857 up to 1860. Among the cases in which Isaac N. Bassett and his copartners were employed was an ejectment suit for a half section of land in North Henderson Township. The suit was com- menced in 1855 by Lewis W. Thompson for a man by the name of Bragg, and had run along for several years in which there were two trials, each of the parties having gained a judgment, but under the statute each party had paid the costs and procured a new trial. In 1866 John R. and Isaac N. Bassett were employed to assist Mr. Thompson in conducting the case. When the suit was commenced the land was vacant and the suit was against James P. Erskine, a
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prominent land dealer in Quincy, Ill. After the commencement of the suit Mr. Bragg contracted to sell all of the land to three different persons, and his vendees took possession of the land and commenced the cultivation of the same. In 1867 Mr. Bragg dismissed his eject- ment suit as his vendees were in possession of the land; thereupon Mr. Erskine sent persons up in the land and invaded the possession and commenced improvements thereon; and the respective pur- chasers from Bragg through J. R. & I. N. Bassett commenced for a forcible entry and detainer and recovered judgment against Erskine's tenants.
Erskine then conveyed the land to a non-resident and suits were commenced in the United States Circuit Court at Chicago against the three persons respectively to whom Bragg had sold. That litiga- tion continued for a number of years, each of the parties, plaintiff and defendant, having recovered a judgment in the United States Circuit Court, each having paid the costs under the statutes and re- instated the case.
George F. Harding and Alexander McCoy, copartners, were em- ployed in the case with J. R. and I. N. Bassett in the Federal Court; and finally the matter was settled by Erskine upon payment of $1,000 to him by Bragg, who was defending the suit for his vendees. Wil- liam C. Goudy was the principal attorney for Erskine in the United States court. At the commencement of the ejectment suit, in 1855, the half section of land, which was No. I prairie land, was worth $1,600, and when the suit was concluded it was worth $16,000, and at the present time it is worth over $200 an acre. The contest in that case grew out of a title for a half section of land given to a soldier of the War of 1812 by the name of Corey. Erskine claimed under a deed commencing with Corey to some one, and Bragg claimed under the same party, and it was finally shown by evidence, the deposition of a great many witnesses having been taken in dif- ferent states, proving that Corey did not execute the deed under which Erskine claimed, and among the witnesses was the deposition of Corey himself. This is given as an illustration of litigation that often arose in Mercer County over the titles of real estate; and most frequently arose in regard to the lands that were granted to soldiers of the War of 1812; the greater part of these lands having been sold for taxes and tax titles acquired by the purchasers, and the soldier's title often being represented by conveyances of persons claiming to be their heirs; and persons purchasing through the heirs very fre- quently found that they did not have the title, were not able to prove the heirship, and had litigation over the title or had to purchase again.
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